fwriction

Today’s Story of the Day, from Monkeybicycle, is one that I’ve read a couple of times in recent weeks. Tigue, who also writes about fiction at I Heart Short Stories, has a great voice, one I find intoxicating, and leaves me wanting more:

“She has been at her first job for less than a year. In meetings, she has trouble articulating herself, says sexful when she means successful. In memos, she has trouble spelling disappointment and rhythm. She remains nervous and guarded.

In general, she has lots of fears. She worries about the gas smell of her stove, about sharp pains in her chest, the side effects of vaccines. She hates the sound of fireworks, the way she flinches as if slightly hollowed with each blast.

It is like post-traumatic stress, a woman told her, for imagined or future trauma. To this woman, she thinks, trauma must come strictly in booms and pops.”